PRE-ORDER THE PACT @AMAZON NOW!

On DVD & Blu-Ray 01 Oct 2012

Some horror films make their point by being endurance tests. How much gore, how much depravity, how much screaming can you take as a viewer? This is the question posed by many movies. The Pact is more of a classic ghost tale, albeit with a murderous twist. Scares are built up to and then unleashed in a seat-leaving jolt of fear. It’s a classic technique that requires a lot of carefully cultivated atmosphere to work.

Here are some of the classics

Carrie’s hand bursts from the grave

Setting a horror blueprint for the final pre-credit scare, this vaseline on the lens sequence of fever-dreaming is an idyllic scene showing a guilty friend tending a tragic grave… Until Carrie’s already rotting hands thrust from the dirt to grab the unfortunate girl, who wakes screaming from her nightmare with her sanity on the brink.

The body in the hull

As Richard Dreyfuss dives to investigate a recently submerged wreck, he’s looking for evidence of a shark attack. A handily embedded tooth, lodged in the boat provides a clue. A clue that is quickly fumbled into the depths when a mangled, chewed and bloated corpse floats into frame and the auditorium loses its popcorn en masse.

Point and scream

After surviving the pod people outbreak in the Me-generation, therapy obsessed 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a lone women is seen wandering, cleverly hiding among the replaced by showing no emotion of any kind. Until she sees her friend – played by Donald Sutherland. She greets him warmly… He raised a pointed finger and unleashes a scream from the depths of hell.

The boy in the lake

Stalk and slash scholars will quickly inform you that it’s not Jason doing the killings in the first of the endless Friday the 13th franchise… It’s Mrs. Voorhees that’s offing the kids. But for this movies final girl, the standard package of surviving character guilt, relief and mental instability isn’t happening. Because something supernatural is lurking in the lake. The living, drowned corpse of Jason is here to make an appearance at the very end as he suddenly arrives to drag the lucky one who made it for the last reel to a watery death.

The dead girl in the TV

Finally, do you remember when you first saw The Ring? Already unnerved by the PR hype about a cursed video… A video you were now inserting into the VCR, nothing really prepares you for the stripped down, lo-fi jolt when the long haired, bedraggled, double-jointed ghost crawls menacingly out of the television.

MORE PACT
SERIAL KILLINGS
GHOSTLY THRILLERS
PRESS RELEASE & TRAILER

On DVD & Blu-Ray 01 Oct 2012

Tagged with:
 

PRE-ORDER @AMAZON NOW!

A Night in the Woods opens at selected UK cinemas:

TOMORROW! -7th September 2012

Available on DVD and download:

10th September 2012

Pre-order yours here

So, is there anything intrinsically wrong with making a film that plows a similar furrow to a classic?

A Night In The Woods can be compared to a UK version of Blair Witch but let’s face it, the idea of sending the cast out into the wild to film their own demise is so delicious that it seems churlish to make snide remarks on the format. After all, our folk devils are different to those in and around the New Jersey forests and British horror wrote the book on weird rural locals providing dark mutterings about sticking to the roads.

Cursory research online will reveal that Blair Witch borrowed heavily from Video Nasty classic Cannibal Holocaust in any case and all films have a provenance – a set of influences either subtle or obvious – on which they draw. Personally, I love found footage horror so if a British team want to explore a similar set of movie making techniques in my own backyard, this delights me. Found Footage has always appealed to me for the same reason that I love DIY punk and underground music… Because it’s low budget and needs the imagination of the audience to complete the puzzle. Because it’s a genre that doesn’t need vast reserves of cash in order to put the fear of God into me. Because when I watch a movie like this – whether it’s a work of genius or a bust – it makes me feel like I could pick up a camera and frighten people as well.

Some people say Found Footage as a genre is overplayed. I argue different. It’s bloated franchises and over-budgeted mainstream horror that displays a dearth of imagination. A Night In The Woods works because it’s stripped back, stripped down horror. A few people, something lurking and the actors ability to show fear and terror sell the picture, not some dude in a mask accompanied by a bombastic rock-heavy score.

Here’s a clip from A Night In The Woods during a quieter moment, no doubt before the storm…

MORE GREAT A NIGHT IN THE WOODS CONTENTA NIGHT IN THE WOODS PRESS RELEASEWILDERNESS HORRORSPRIVATE FOOTAGE IT’S IN THE TREES, IT’S COMING

Tagged with:
 
 
PageLines Themes